The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1887-08-04
LOVE LETTERS.
MISS CLEVELAND WRITES ON
THE SUBJECT,
And Spe axis FamiIiarly About Matter
She is Supposed to Have had Little
Experience in.
TRose Elizabeth Cleveland.J ]

HOST IL1ILdDCGji
Some one was saying the other day
that the art of writing love letters was
lost art. If SO, it must be that love
has gone rather out of fashion. 1T
seems to US that whoever loves will
naturally write an irreproachable love
letter, if he allows his pen to report
the emotions of his heart. To be sure,
there are those prudent lovers who
never put anything upon paper-that
is. anything in particular-not exactly
because they expect to be sued for a
breach of promise some day, but be-
cause it is unsafe, and letters run a
great risk, pass through innumerable
hands, and pretty phrases and endear-
ments are too precious to be endan-
gered Others regard their emotions as
too sincere and divine to be written
out, and are afraid, perhaps, that they
will SAVIOR of exaggtration while
others would like to express a great
deal, but their thoughts fly awkwardly
from the pen, and seem to lose all
their significance. Many who can
talk love and nonsense by the yard,
lose their facility the instant they touch
a pen they need the electric presence
of the object of inspiration, the retort,
the response, or they write an essay,
instead OF love letter; others, again,
can produce the most gushing speci-
mems of the art, but are dumb before
the shrine. Ofcourse the love letter
which would seem like drop of dis
titled honey to one recipient, would
appear cold and calculated to another;
one will idealize even the baldest pos
sible expressions till they seem to
shine with the radiance of love itself,
will say all the writer would have to
say if he knew how while to her
neighbor the sweetest words will not
suffice to fill the measure Of her ex
peCtatiOns and imagination, since she
always anticipates something sweeter
than human thought can frame There
are those who like to read from their
love letters to a curious or envious
audience and others-a few-like
Hawthorne, who wrote to his wife:
Your letters are too sacred to be
read in the midst of people I never
read them, " he adds, (. without first
washing my hands" One would hardly
care for them if she could not boast of
their possession and advertise it, an
other feels that they are almost too
personal and dear to mention, and
learns the contents by heart, as if they
were so many poems, as indeed they
are to her experience. The love let
ter must not be too long, nor yet too
short, but of that just measure that the
reader shall always wish there were yet
a little more, if only postscript; and
it should be of that quality which sug-
gests such lovely and tender thoughts,
and a second perusal one is surprised
to find that they are not expressed in
so many words, so certain was she that
they orr iginatsd with the writer. The
loveliest of al love letters, however,
are those between husband and wife.
As long as they continue, there will
be no room for the serpent to enter.
They are the bulwark of the home and
the safety of life itself Let them null
tiply as the leaves of the forest and
! SHINE as the stars in the heavens. The
mail bags cannot be too heavily loaded
with such loving missives. They are
the salt of the earth.